Posts by Meg Pirie

Jackie Mlotek shares insights from SWTO 2014, along with first-hand contributions from activists taking part in this year’s march. “Every single person I talked to wanted to end victim blaming and slut shaming,” she writes. Read more in the first instalment in this two-part series. READ MORE

Youth writer Claire Velikonja writers about what feminism means to her and why it’s vital teens understand the underpinnings of this practice. “I am a feminist,” Claire writes. “I will think, and grow, and love, and believe, with everything that I have in the short time on this world that I have been given.” READ MORE

In this three-part series, Amy Egerdeen shares some incredible tips on organizing your own feminist zine fair, based on her work with SACHA, Hamilton’s Sexual Assault Centre. Today’s themes? Call-out, collaborate, and social media! READ MORE

In this three-part series, Amy Egerdeen shares some incredible tips on organizing your own feminist zine fair, based on her work with SACHA, Hamilton’s Sexual Assault Centre. Today’s themes? Planning, preparation, and accessibility! READ MORE

Jackie Mlotek provides some excellent references for queering sex ed, because when it comes to our ongoing sexual education, we can learn from each other! She writes: “Who knows what teens need to know better than other teens, especially when they’re taught accurate information from other sources?” READ MORE

My mom was full of many contradictions. In turn, most of her teachings were, too. You were never really sure which side she was on. Yet somewhere among all the contradictions, I understood where she was coming from. READ MORE

The cave you found yourself in? That wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t yours to fix. It was yours to experience. And in its own way, it has been one of your life’s greatest gifts and wisest teachers. READ MORE

One day in elementary school, I had to do a “get to know you” activity with another student. At the part of the form that required me to fill in “Best Friend,” I wrote PEPPY.
“Who’s Peppy?” the classmate asked.
“My dog.”
“Your dog is your best friend?!”
Up until that point, this didn’t seem so strange. And why would it? Peppy and I came into each other’s lives when I was 7, and I will always think of … READ MORE

When I look back at my high school experience, if I’m being completely honest, it did not start out so well.
Mine was not a name that was whispered with hallowed reverence in the hallways. At just under five feet when I was 14, I quite literally got lost in the crowd. The transition from grade 8 to grade 9 was mostly awkward, a little painful (getting pushed into lockers = #notfun), and completely, utterly anti-climactic. … READ MORE

In May 2001, American author and sociologist Barbara Ehrenreich published Nickel and Dimed. In this deeply provocative ethnography, Ehrenreich attempts to earn a living wage at a variety of service sector jobs in one month intervals, from Wal-Mart associate, waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, and nursing-home aide. All of these positions paid minimum wage and, therefore, should have provided the author with a sustainable income. What she found was a series of jobs that were … READ MORE

Recently, I’ve been experiencing mansplaining. A lot of mansplaining. This phenomenon is one I define as explaining the world and all of its nuances in a supremely confident, woefully simplistic manner. Mansplanations rely on privilege—derived from whiteness, maleness, ability and/or straightness—not accuracy. It doesn’t matter if the mansplainer is misinformed, grossly inept, or just plain wrong.
Worth pointing out as well is that mansplaining as a phenomenon doesn’t mean only self-identified cis men are guilty; whenever … READ MORE

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: labour doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And yet, we tend to think about this large part of our lives as somehow separate from “real life.” I’m not sure if this need to segment our labour is a product of Western education founded on arbitrary divisions or a way to detach from work lives that, for some, are filled with precarity, malaise, or just plain boredom. That’s … READ MORE

Photos are funny, aren’t they? A look through an album or Instagram and you see moments in time, frozen with the click of a shutter. It is, as Susan Sontag observed in her book of essays On Photography, proof that you were somewhere. A photo is a pictorial declaration that you took up space, at some point, in some location.
And then, there are those images that are, for many, instantly recognizable. We might know nothing … READ MORE

Now that we’re no longer inundated with the minute-by-minute updates from London—newsflashes brought to you by Coke and McDonalds—it’s time to take part in Ye Olde Olympic retrospective and for me to confess the following: My name is Meg. I am a feminist. But I also love the Olympics. That said, I am highly, highly critical of the corporate ethos that governs not just the Games’ infrastructure, but also how the labour of amateur athletes … READ MORE

A little over a week ago, a worldwide boycott of Hyatt hotel chains was announced in the US, organized by UNITE HERE, the union that represents Hyatt hotel workers.
Hyatt is guilty of labour abuses that are becoming more common in this age of austerity, including ever-increasing, oppressive workloads (cleaning thirty rooms in a shift, to start); limited time off; and of course, hiring contract workers to cut costs, to name a few. Additionally, there are … READ MORE

On Valentine’s Day we are, quite literally, bombarded by a deluge of nonsensical language. For this reason, I hate this superficial, highly choreographed “holiday” that tells us how love should be expressed. Rather than emotional support and having (a) partner(s) who act(s) as (an) ally(ies), love is reduced to an economic transaction. I’m neither the first nor the last person to comment that Valentine’s Day does more harm than good: it polices who we love, … READ MORE

We live in a time where our rights are on the job have been carved away, bit-by-bit, whether it’s hapless governments or multinationals who benefit from neo-liberal policies. For this reason, participatory mobilization alongside collective bargaining has never been more important. The following video helps illustrate this point.
Precarious work in its many forms is open to myriad abuses and our experiences with labour intersects with ableism, racism, sexism, colonization, transphobia and homophobia. We need labour … READ MORE

One of the greatest achievements of neoliberalism is the ways in which the state’s role shifted from caretaker to CFO. This ostensibly seamless transition saw the rise of the not-for-profit/non-profit sector (I use the terms interchangeably in this post), stepping in to provide necessary social services that were once the responsibility of our governments and elected officials. In other words, governments need not-for-profits, and not-for-profits, which might receive some funding form government agencies and need … READ MORE